The Eighth International Spores Conference will be held at the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts on October 9 through 12, 1980. The purpose of the conference is to bring together 300 scientists from industries and universities around the world who work on spores. The emphasis of the conference will be on bacterial endospores although one half-day session will be devoted to other differentiating microorganisms. The program will include sessions on the properties of spores, applied microbiology, sporeforming and toxigenic sporeforming bacteria, and the genetics, molecular biology and biochemistry of sporogenesis and germination. In addition to sessions of formal talks, the meeting will include poster sessions, informal roundtable discussions and a special workshop on gene cloning in Bacillus subtilis. Selected reports and reviews from the meeting will be published by the American Society for Microbiology.